


Homecoming

by Avelera



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Fluff, Kissing, M/M, Reunions, Separations, Sharing a Bed, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-24
Updated: 2016-05-24
Packaged: 2018-06-10 12:03:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6955783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Avelera/pseuds/Avelera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was three years before the isolation of Bag End became so choking that Bilbo finally set out again to travel the world. Coming back to Erebor was of course a complete coincidence, and naturally he had not intentions of seeing Thorin while he was there. After all, the newly-crowned king had made it very clear that he wanted Bilbo to go home...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homecoming

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous prompted: Bagginshield #40 when Bilbo shows up at Erebor years later (everyone lives? Or at least Thorin is King Under the Mountain)
> 
> I'm going back through drabbles and one-shots posted to Tumblr for "Acorns and Oakenshields II" but this piece was long enough to be its own standalone. Simple, straightforward, unabashed Bagginshield fluff. I hope you enjoy!

The door closed behind Bilbo with a soft _click_ ,and suddenly he was standing across from Thorin as he had not in three years _._  He felt more as if he was arrayed for a duel rather than a reunion; Thorin had not removed the crown, or the cloak with its lining of fur. Bilbo had forgotten without knowing it was there to forget how large Thorin was, how imposing when framed by leather, fur, and metal. No gold, he noted, and the crown was different than the one Bilbo remembered, silver and black, though still the same design.

It went well with Thorin’s eyes, Bilbo thought distantly, even as he stilled his feet which had shuffled and fidgeted under the intensity of that gaze.

“I’m not sure what all this fuss is about,” Bilbo finally managed, dredging up some remnants of the indignation he felt at being dragged by the guards immediately from the front gate to Thorin’s quarters, without even a by-your-leave or a moment to seek out any of his other friends among the Company. He had hoped to bolster himself, work up his courage by catching up with his old companions, perhaps test the mood before confronting the man he had… he had…

Well, there really was no word for what they had been, or what he had thought they were, before Thorin made it quite clear that Bilbo’s place was the Shire.

“It’s only I was in the area…” Bilbo continued in the face of that stare. A blatant lie, he’d crossed the Misty Mountains and Mirkwood to get there. “… And I thought, well, it’s about four, let’s see if the same courtesy is extended in return. But I can see now that very little courtesy is extended—"

He would have continued. Meant to. But in two powerful strides Thorin was in front of him, cloak sweeping the ground, and before Bilbo could squeak much less raise a hand to defend himself, Thorin had grabbed his face in his hands, palms clasped around his jawline, the fingertips teasing the edges of Bilbo’s ears. He had only a moment to think it was a strangely gentle grip for someone who intended to bash his head in, when Thorin closed the distance.

The kiss took Bilbo’s breath away, not the least because he had already exhaled in shock and confusion, quite prepared to ask _what in the world_ Thorin was doing. Then there were soft lips against his, and before he knew it he was kissing _back_ , because it had been in truth an unforgivably long time not to taste those lips, and there was an inelegant mashing of noses against cheeks as they clung to one another and wouldn’t let go, all thought of his many excuses quite flown away.

“Not a note, hardly a word, only gone the next day without your gold, without any prize and _barely a farewell_ ,” Thorin growled against his lips, sounding hoarse and far closer to tears than anger. Thorin’s eyes were closed when Bilbo opened his, pressing their foreheads together, breathing hard. Bilbo winced, jerking away at the cold weight of steel pressing against his forehead, and without a thought Thorin pulled back long enough to tear the crown from his head and throw it to the ground, where it clanged and clattered and went still.

“You told me to leave,” Bilbo said, once he had stopped blinking at the sight. When he leaned back in it was to punctuate his words with biting kisses to Thorin’s lips. “Go back to your books and your armchair, you said that, you _said_. As if it was nothing, as if you were glad to be rid of me!”

“Because I understand what it is to miss a _home_ ,” Thorin snapped. “What would you have me do, beg? Plead with you to stay by my side, because I need you there to set me right? Tell you that all these years I’ve sought my home, and I want nothing more than to flee back to yours? And that’s what you do, not a month after I rose from my sickbed!”

“A word! A word and I would have, Thorin, any indication _whatsoever_ that it meant anything! Do you know why I didn’t write?” Bilbo broke away, pulling free of Thorin’s grasp so he could look up at him, red-faced and gritting his teeth because he didn’t know if he would shout or cry, with no idea of which would be worse. “It would all have been the same. How are you? How are the others? Is Erebor lovely in the spring? Remember, tea is at four, if someone would like to come by, anyone…”

“We were here, you always have a place here, Bilbo, if only…” Bilbo didn’t give Thorin a chance to finish, returning the favor with fingers tangled in Thorin’s beard, cutting off his words with a kiss of his own. He didn’t know when he had begun to weep, and that was its own silent mortification, but any hope of getting through this meeting with any semblance of dignity was long flown.

“ _Shh_ , I’m here now,” Bilbo said, and there was no preventing the tremor in his voice. Thorin clutched at him harder. And all he could do was repeat it, over and over, _I’m here now_ until both their trembling ceased.

* * *

Exhausted and worn as he had not been the entire journey there– bolstered as he had been then by the wings of hope, desperation and painful longing to be back in Erebor– Bilbo tottered over to a low couch once they broke apart, one propped against the stone wall of Thorin’s chamber, barely looking up when Thorin sank down next to him.

On his own, Bilbo knew he should be affronted still at being accosted so rudely by the guards, or nervous to jump so quickly into casual intimacy with Thorin after so long apart. Surely there should be some distance between them, some awkwardness. But Thorin had shrugged off the heavy cloak and draped it over the back of a chair, and when he sat down next to Bilbo without a crown or furs he held out an arm, offering to let Bilbo lie against him.

It should not be so easy. Thorin should not run shivering fingers through his curls, and Bilbo should not have leaned in, nuzzling against Thorin’s throat, feeling both the soft heat of his skin and the bristles of his beard on his cheek. It was an excellent excuse to hide his face, which felt stuffy and hot from the earlier tears. Thorin’s breath was loud in his ears, and so close he could hear how shaky it was despite those deep breaths. His body was warm against Bilbo’s, made all the more so when he tightened his arms, and Bilbo did not resist. Instead he breathed out of his mouth, struggling around the tightness in his throat, and all the while a distant part of him wondered what this was, why it was happening.

Silence. So much of what existed between them had been silence. Knowing looks and that ever-present understanding. A glance, a nod spoke all that needed to be said between them, unclouded by the weight of all they were, or what they should have been. They existed in the calm within the storm, all around them their lives raged, the many voices in Bilbo’s head warning him what he should and should not do. All Thorin’s burdens, his status, his dreams and tragedies. Stepping back into that space had been simple, far too much so, like shrugging on a comfortable old robe, like stepping over a threshold. Like… like…

Like coming home.

Bilbo was gladder than ever to have his face hidden, or felt he should be. Yet such anxious propriety was only a distant, uncomfortable imperative, frivolous at the end of a long day, a long three years. Perhaps he should have been ashamed of the hiccough he sobbed against Thorin’s chest.

He had found the answer to his own ghost story, the reason he had haunted Bag End, a pale and wraith-like figure that could not understand why the house no longer fit. A hearth was not a home, the books, the maps, even the armchair was cold and unfamiliar. It even smelled wrong. And yet he had lingered, wandering from room to room as if the spark that made it _home_ flitted just ahead, if he could just catch it… but of course he could not, because it had been here all along, in the calm at the center of the storm.

Bilbo drifted, partially dozing against Thorin’s shoulder as warm fingers brushed through his hair and clung as if he would never let go. For all of the potential menace of Thorin’s size, there were too some benefits, the way he could form a cavern with his arms where Bilbo could hide away, surrounded by the scent of him, lost in the darkness behind his eyes.

“Take the bed,” Thorin murmured, and Bilbo roused with a sleepy groan.

“Bed?” Bilbo said, lips smacking as he awoke. He looked up to see Thorin looking down at him, expression soft, his touch gentle as he ran a thumb down Bilbo’s cheek.

“You are weary from your travels, and I can make other arrangements. I will rest better knowing you are here,” Thorin said, the last hesitant, as if unsure if it was intruding too far to offer his own opinion, or necessary to make Bilbo accept.

“Nonsense, it can’t be later than five in the evening,” Bilbo mumbled, blinking the sleep from his eyes, rubbing them as Thorin gave a low chuckle.

“Well past nine now, and my day was long as well, and I should seek my own rest. Otherwise I would not wakened you,” Thorin said. He brushed a curl from Bilbo’s forehead, then eased up, straightening and stretching with a grimace as his spine popped, upsetting Bilbo’s balance so he was forced to straighten as well.

“Impossible, there is no way I slept that long. Why, I hardly sleep at all these…” Bilbo stopped himself before he could add _days_. How could he have fallen asleep within mere minutes in Thorin’s arms, in the middle of the day and after kisses that stole his breath away? “You could have woken me,” Bilbo said crossly.

“I saw no reason to,” Thorin said with a small shrug. He stood, turning to offer Bilbo his hand to stand as well. When he took it, Thorin added, “You are peaceful when you sleep.”

Bilbo tottered on his feet, swaying as he frowned at Thorin. “Nevertheless, it was hardly the reunion I imagined.”

“I didn’t dare imagine one at all,” Thorin said softly. “So I was not disappointed. Bilbo,” he said, just as Bilbo’s mouth opened to protest, “I enjoyed it. Please, take the bed. I can find another in my own palace, after all.”

“Oh, pish,” Bilbo snorted. “I’m the guest here, I can hardly force you from your quarters.”

Thorin inclined his head, giving Bilbo a wry look. “I know enough of your custom to know that’s not how it works. Please, you’re unfamiliar with the city now that it is once again functioning. It is a simple matter for me, and a difficult one for you. It can wait until morning.”

“Why not simply join me?” Bilbo blurted. He breathed, fighting for that eye of calm, where inviting Thorin to bed was not enough to send him scuttling to the door with his face aflame. “We bedded down together often enough on the journey. Come now, this is hardly any different.”

If he was expecting argument, he was doomed to disappointment. “If that is what you wish,” Thorin said. “So long as it does not make you uncomfortable. There’s no expectation based on the past, I hope you understand.”

Indeed, weeks spent in a chair by Thorin’s sickbed, jumping at the slightest noise for fear that it might be Thorin’s last breath was hardly a precedent to work from. Not even those later nights when the danger passed, and Bilbo curled up under Thorin’s good arm, pressed close on the narrow cot and lulled to sleep by the steady beat of Thorin’s heart. Before the coronation, before Thorin began to insist that the best place for him was home…

“Not uncomfortable in the slightest,” Bilbo said firmly, and filled with a gumption that was pure reaction to those old memories, stubbornness and reflexive desire  _not_ to be put off by something so simple and harmless as bed sharing. He stripped off his velvet coat (richer than when last they met) and tossed it over the back of the chair over Thorin’s cloak. The waistcoat followed, and he hesitated only once his braces hung useless at his side, his fingers hovering over the buttons of his shirt before he began undoing them with a resolute nod to himself. He only glanced up enough to see the flicker of a half-smile over Thorin’s lips and a small shrug as he followed suit, kicking off his boots and stripping down to a simple shirt and trousers before he excused himself to fetch different garments from his wardrobe.

This left Bilbo with a conundrum. He had left the supplies brought with him from the Shire with the guards, and with no desire to go tracking them now, Bilbo was left in essentially his skin. There was very little for it, he was hardly going to sleep in travel-stained clothing in Thorin’s bed, and so while Thorin was still absent he stripped to his small-clothes, reminding himself they had seen one another bathe, and a good deal more besides, before slipping under the heavy covers of the bed with the piles of furs above. It was like a furnace there, comforting as sleep stole over his eyes and they fluttered shut, until he felt the bed shift and opened them again to see Thorin sitting at the far edge, back turned to him.

Thorin breathed deeply, long hair falling around his face, the braids already unbound. For a long moment he only sat there, while Bilbo watched in silence. As the moment dragged on, Bilbo freed himself from the entangling blankets, inching over the mattress until he knelt directly behind Thorin. The dwarf wore soft trousers for sleep and nothing else, and Bilbo ignored the flush of embarrassment, the desire to cover himself, and instead slipped his arms around Thorin, resting his chin on Thorin’s shoulder. A broad hand rose to clasp his wrist, and they hung there as if suspended in time, the warmth of Thorin’s back pressing against Bilbo’s softer stomach, and that truly inconvenient tightness once more welling in his throat. He noted idly that Thorin’s hair smelled lovely, of some pomade oil to smooth its length and he breathed it deeply.

“I fear if I turn around, I will discover it’s only another dream,” Thorin murmured. “And coward that I am, I would rather do nothing than risk banishing it. Tell me you are really here, just once more.”

Bilbo swallowed. “I’m here.”

Thorin sighed, his shoulders easing beneath Bilbo’s touch. He turned, smiling up at Bilbo, eyes flickering to his lips as he closed the distance and sealed them together. It was softer than their first one, soft with relief and acceptance, neither pushing nor taking, but only glad to have Bilbo there. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! If so, please consider leaving a comment!


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